Brett:

Yeah. People love it. It's so great. Insurance is the best

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Everybody will have this actual ad and they showed us. You got to have some context, but essentially it's gray savings for exclusive drivers, so it's very car insurance oriented. Brett, go ahead and rip this apart. Tell us how it'll work first. I know you mentioned the other ad, you maybe put a little bit more money behind on the actual getting it created verse this just being a stock ad. Go ahead and give everybody some context of how good this ads did and more or less why.

Brett:

Yeah. You gave away the secret there, stock. Who knew? It's a car insurance company, just for some context. They were new to Australia. Their target demo is women, 35 plus, who are the sole driver of their car. They do not share their vehicle. Pretty tough market. Australia is not very big. Obviously women makes it smaller, and then 35 plus who do not share cars, very specific.

Brett:

They partnered with a TV show, so they were a sponsor of a pretty big... Let's think of American Idol, but it wasn't the Australian Idol. It was another type of show like that.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow.

Brett:

They're the main sponsor there, so they had to get a legit commercial, because they were going to be on TV and stuff. They invested a lot of money to produce a 15 and 30 second commercial. Of course, we're going to try and use that on Facebook.

Speaker 1:

Now, just so everybody gets some ideas out there, how much is an actual commercial cost to get made for TV? Like 10K, 20K, 30K, 100K?

Brett:

I would say closer to 250. It looks good. It looks like a real commercial.

Speaker 1:

I would hope at that cost.

Brett:

Yeah. No, I know. We got a lot of images out of it that we could use, or we're able to use. We didn't use them all. They didn't use our ideas when they were shooting it, because with social BTS, behind the scenes stuff, would have been fun. There's so much you can do when you're shooting creative and they didn't give us that. We had this very fancy, professionally shot commercial. We introduced that into our funnel and I have results in my... Right here. Before, we're trying to reach certain metrics. We want to get people to buy the insurance, for ideally, under 200 bucks. We were getting it around 222. It was not hitting the goal, and we were only getting about 45 purchases for insurance online a month with those ads.

Brett:

They really, really were hard on that $200 mark, was their CPA goal. We weren't really reaching it with that specific video, so our team got together. We're like, "Let's just find some stock stuff. Maybe we can do something else, because this video, it's very boring.". I wish I could show it to you. It's just so boring. It's just a boring video of a strange dude who's clumsy and sets his coffee down and spills it and asks to borrow a car. Borrow the lady's car, and she's like, "I'm not going to share my car with you.".

Brett:

We got this stock video and it's literally just a lady dancing. She's happy, just dancing with a folder in her hand, back and forth, back and forth for eight seconds and that's it. Copy, you can be happy too when you see how much you can save. Because really car insurance is so boring. Nobody wants to deal with it. We all have to though. Make it exciting. We're talking about Facebook, Instagram, social media. If it's a boring industry, a boring product, a boring service that you're selling, you're already probably boring with your ads. You can't be. You got to do something different with your creative. The Geicos of the world... You can't really compete with Geico and Allstate.

Speaker 1:

You got Flow as well. She's such a dominant figure in the insurance side.

Brett:

Seriously, yeah.

Speaker 1:

What do you think-

Brett:

She [crosstalk 00:06:59].

Speaker 1:

Video actually, by the way. Was it something on Facebook. Was it promo or what'd y'all use for the stock videos.

Brett:

Goodness. I think it was just an Adobe video.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow.

Brett:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Was there any overlaid text or anything? Or just straight video of her dancing?

Brett:

Just a video of her dancing. Yeah. She's in a business suit, a power suit that's not buttoned up. She's having fun. She's dancing, but $85. There's only $85 to get this video.

Speaker 1:

What was the difference in lead costs from the professional video to this video? I know you mentioned around two, 220 for the more higher quality video. The actual-

Brett:

Yeah. Looking at Ads Manager here, so it was 40 purchases at 222 before and then 600 purchases at $55 a purchase.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's drastic change there.

Brett:

It was huge, because-

Speaker 1:

Behind this actual ad, would you say it's more than 10, 15k? It sounds like it.

Brett:

No. We increased it more, those months. We were crushing goals and it's like, "Well, when we're hitting our goals, you're ready to pour more fuel on the fire. Let's go." . And they're like, "Absolutely.".

Speaker 1:

Heck yeah.

Brett:

And that's the most fun, definitely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so quite a different approach on the whole rich ad side. It's very legion oriented. From all those purchases, are y'all tracking leads to purchases or just optimizing for purchase? I'm curious-

Brett:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like the lead drop-off. Where if you got a hundred leads, maybe only 60 with purchase or whatnot.

Brett:

Right, so these are all straight online sales. They are starting a quote, getting a quote and finishing and purchasing their policy. That's what we want. We've optimized for start a quote for other campaigns just to get people into the funnel. So starting the quote process and then ultimately purchasing, because we're actually optimized for purchases with these ads, because the engine can track all that stuff. And they're actually putting a credit card in and spending, maybe average, like four or five hundred dollars. Or no, sorry. They're worth four or five hundred dollars.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because insurance it's a shitty topic. Let's be real. With these actual ads, are going to be this happy to have a girl dancing. It's a very non looking insurance ad, but I feel like you just killed it on this side.

Brett:

Right, and it's important to remember; you do not need to... It'd be great if you could shoot a Geicoesk commercial for your boring product or service. But it's very... These guys spent how much with that other ad, the other commercial, that they produced. You don't need to do that. This is just a girl having fun dancing. It has nothing to do with car insurance. It doesn't matter, but we've targeted these people, added them to our funnel, re-targeted them and you just, you're having a good time, finish your quote.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. It's perfect too, because you got a girl dancing and you mentioned earlier that 35 plus, women oriented Australian audience is that sweet spot. Pretty snazzy on how relevant this really is to the audience.

Brett:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

Well, hell yeah. Will love to go ahead-

Brett:

Hell yeah.

Speaker 1:

And segment this bad boy into the actual poor ad. [crosstalk 00:10:30].

Brett:

I don't know.

Speaker 1:

We're about to roast some ads.

Speaker 1:

I sent you three variations.

Brett:

Yah.

Speaker 1:

Go ahead, and I think we should roast the second ad I sent you. On Mr. Sly Digital Business.

Brett:

Do you think Sly is real? First of all, is this a real... Is he Sly Digital?

Speaker 1:

Shit, this ads not sly at all? I think it looks fricking terrible, but everybody just so we have some context, we'll have this in the show notes, but generate free organic leads and sales without paying for ads. Now where'd this come from y'all? An ad. There's nothing nice about it. Secret hack captures organic online lead and sales on autopilot.

Brett:

Fire emoji, fire emoji, fire emoji.

Speaker 1:

What are your first thoughts on this? Would you convert immediately or maybe not at all?

Brett:

I'm distracted by the O face, the wow emoji. It looks 3D.

Speaker 1:

I know.

Brett:

He's got the like and the heart emoji floating around the background of his picture, in his image, but that wow emoji is just distracting the heck out of me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. The creative is absolutely terrible. I get the angle he was going for, but when you're running ads online, you really got to spice it up a little bit in some way. There is negative feedback and then there's positive feedback. The amount of negative feedback this is going to have, it's just going to ruin the entire ROI, because this defeats the whole purpose of what he's trying to sell is; how to get organic leads without paying for ads. But Hey, I'm going to pay for ads so I can get these leads.

Brett:

Right. We would see this and be like, "What the hell is this?". I think the average user wouldn't really get that joke behind what we're talking about, but the funny... I don't know. If you read the copy too, again, or look at the copy, this bugs the shit out of me. Even at Facebook all the time, and still when we get new ad accounts and do audits, it's like, does anybody pay attention to their copy, and how they type it? They do that first letter of every word capitalized, but then they miss certain letter or certain words, and then it's big, small, big, small, big, big, big, small, small. What is that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. I can tell you exactly what it is, man. It's a shitty ad.

Brett:

[inaudible 00:13:09] ad.

Speaker 1:

That was a good little detour, to have a little road session and just admire how good our ads are. Just because, there are some really hidden nuggets that are just absolutely terrible these days.

Brett:

Yeah. I wish he had a necklace on too. That would have been nicer.

Speaker 1:

It would have been a lot of swag. A gold chain possibly popped a little bit more, but yeah.

Brett:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Hey, that's a poor ad right there. Well, cool. For the final segment, of course, we'd love to dive into some financial principles. Take a page out of the Rich Dad Poor Dad book. Brett, with you managing, shoot, six to eight mil a year in ad spend, what tips would you have for other agency owners on the fund... Not even the funding, but that more finance side of things. Like, hey, how to come up with a budget. Do you have a budget? How to scale that side. What are some tips you would give to individuals who are listening out there and we've got media buyers, advertisers, businesses. What financial tips would you give out there to let everybody keep in mind?

Brett:

Well, geez, that's a loaded question, man. Obviously, or maybe it's not obvious, but it should be. What are you selling? If it's one product or whatever, multiple products, you have to think of your profit margin. Your margins are super important, and it goes back to, "Okay. What can we spend to still, and get a sale, and still see a profit?". Where are you in the business of... Are you brand new, and you just need to reach a bunch of people and get some sales to proof of concept and go from there. Or have you been doing this awhile, things are groovy, we want to scale and reach more people. We're not worried about bottom line profit or anything. We just want to top line, reach more people, keep expanding.

Brett:

I'd say 20% of our clients are very budget focused, in that they don't want to spend over 20K a month or something like that. It's a pretty hard 20 and we've probably... I think four of them last month, one was two bucks over, but it's really fun to be really close with your budgets. $2 shouldn't matter.

Speaker 1:

No. Not at all, but when it comes down to those accounts that are killing it, how do you bring it up to your clients saying, "Hey, the results are there.". You brought up earlier. You got to fuel the fire when it's really blazing-

Brett:

Exactly. The other 70% of our clients, 75, we talked to them in the beginning and say like, "Okay. What is your budget for ads? What can you spend monthly, quarterly?". Often, they'll say, "I mean, you tell me", and it's like, "Perfect.". Because they're of the mind like, "If it's working, here we go.". Keep burning it. Increase spend. If we're hitting our goals, hitting your KPIs, why would you not want to increase spend and scale and scale and scale. Just get the sales.

Brett:

Kind of like what we did with our ad, the rich ad. We had these budgets, but she was also like, "We are crushing it. Keep spending. We have that cap of $200, get as many sales as you can at less than $200 a purchase.". We did, and it was bananas. Absolutely bananas.

Speaker 1:

No, that makes total sense. How do you deal with those objections as an agency to where it's like... Are you getting paid on percent of ad spend as a flat retainer, so of course probably want even more. How are you boost the LTV of your clients. Do you just let them; "Okay, cool. We'll keep it at 20K flat", or are you like, "Hey, it's looking really good. Q4 is coming up. Make it more expensive. Let's go ahead and feed the beast right now, while we still can. While everything's really efficient.". How do you really navigate those-

Brett:

I'd say almost all of our clients are just a flat retainer, whether they're spending 10K, 100K, whatever. They're going to pay us the same dollar amount each month. I think from a business owner perspective, maybe I would make more money, we would make more money, if we did a percentage of spend, because then we start scaling and we're not making more money. I could tie bonus incentives into our contracts. I haven't done that. We've just really had happy clients. Our retention is very high. We're working with the same clients, pretty much, from when we started plus all the new ones and we've grown only by referrals. That tells something.

Brett:

I think if we did a percentage of spend, it bugs me, because it incentivizes us to spend more, even if the results aren't there. We could still spend more and maybe get less results, but we're getting more money, because they're spending more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. There's always a middle ground there, because it's a tricky situation to we're in. We have a lot of agencies on who get a percent of revenue or percent of profit or percent of actual attribute conversion value. There are lots of ways to do it that are just very win wins. It's just-

Brett:

But dude, even that last one, an attribution is the bane of my existence. Even with the new iOS update, that everybody's freaking out about. Facebook will figure it out, so don't worry too much. There's never a perfect attribution. You just have to explain it to your clients right away. They need to... I think it's working closely with them to help them understand what the hell we're doing. They have no idea. They really don't. They don't get it most of the time. It's like teaching them, really all the analytics and attribution and just all the ads, everything we do.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah. You got to educate them, because of course everybody wants to 10X everything they have when you got to give them a little bit of a reality check.

Brett:

Yeah. I love that.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you have clients come to you, do they typically have a set budget? "Hey, we're looking to spend 20K. We're looking at 10K.". Or do they pretty much say; "How much do you think Brett?"?

Brett:

I think they look at us to be the expert to guide them. Most of them, or lately, more of them have come with like, "We don't know.", which is great, because I can help them answer that. There's the caveat of... Sorry, I muted myself. The caveat of you're spending less than 5K and you haven't ever spent ads before and you can't commit to 5K a month, just as a beginner, it's probably not worth it. It's all case by case dependent. But, you're going to want at least 5K probably. Three to 5K. And then some of our clients have said, "Yeah, we have $10,000.". It's like, "Okay. But what if we're doing?", and they're like, "Sorry, we are... Everything's earmarked or for the year, so we can't spend over that amount each month. It's like, "Bummer. Okay.".

Speaker 1:

No, and that makes total sense there. It's one of those games and you don't really back in numbers. That's something that always drives me a little bonkers, whenever I'm trying to possibly get a client as well. To be like, "Well, how much do you recommend?", I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to say 10K every single time.". That's my favorite budget to start off with.

Brett:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's totally out of the agencies or media buyers control to help businesses allocate a budget to where. We always talk about knowing your numbers, but as a business, you need to know your numbers, before you come to an agency or a media buyer, to actually gauge a three month plan, six month plan or even a yearly plan to gauge what kind of digital marketing budget you need to have. Because with most businesses, that digital marketing budget is one of the larger expenses, but hey, it's what it takes to acquire customers.

Brett:

It sure as shit should be one of the largest budgets and expenditures, but not always. There's still people paying for billboards driving around a city or wrapping a promo vehicle. It's like, "What are you doing?". Make sure that's fun and local, hyper local, but your customers are all over the country and not out right now. Even when they are.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Everybody's everywhere, and you might as well use these machine learning tools to really find them, just because they [inaudible 00:21:47] smarter than we are.

Brett:

It is hard to give somebody a specific budget, also if we get a new lead and talk to the client. If I haven't seen their Shopify store and I haven't looked at their ads or they have nothing for me to look at, it's hard for me to say, "Oh, you got to spend 10K, 30k.". Like, "Oh, we need to spend at least 5K". 5K is the minimum, I think, really that anybody should be spending starting out. Its hard without knowing all the numbers, because it's all just about data, man.

Speaker 1:

Got to feed the beast.

Brett:

Yeah. Hell yeah. The new [inaudible 00:22:26].

Speaker 1:

Well shit, Brett. This was a pretty juicy one here. It's always cool from the other agency's perspectives. Especially at Legion Ad, Australia, on the insurance side on how you're able to take a very expensive commercial and go ahead and pull it out and pull a stock video and-

Brett:

I know.

Speaker 1:

By a four or third. That's just absolute bananas.

Brett:

Lesson learned. Oh, I felt bad throwing that in there, but it just made a crazy difference, and it was so much less expensive, by not even comparison, like how much it cost.

Speaker 1:

It's one of those things. Test, test, test.

Brett:

Who's your Abby?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Great mark. But Brett, what are some cool new things you've got going in Q4? How can people get in touch with you?

Brett:

We are already writing Q4 copy and then create it and making creative for our clients, just because we started that like three weeks ago. You got to think about Q4. If you want to get in touch with me, just go to Unique And; A-N-D. U-N-I-Q-U-E-A-N-D.com or brett@uniqueand.com. I'm always down to chat. I love this stuff, whether you want actual service or not, I'm down to chat. Facebook. I live and breathe in mainline ness all day, every day. What's neat for a couple of our clients, we've started doing those AR ads, augmented reality. People can try on those products on their face or with their phone, their camera phone, as they're looking, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

We may need to get you back on to talk about one of those rich ads then, because that's some-

Brett:

Yeah, yeah. It's different. When we first started, the ads were just terrible. Well, the performance within the ads were terrible. And that's just everything Facebook, they introduce a new thing and it sucks. Remember when dynamic creative was garbage. It was trash. It is so much better now. AR is better. It's still not as good as all of our other types of ads, our other ad types, but it's just a lot of fun and yeah.

Speaker 1:

Y'all heard it best. We're going to have Brett on again to talk about some AR one of these days.

Brett:

Nice.

Speaker 1:

Well man, thanks for hopping on. It was an absolute blast to get you on this bad boy, but hey man, once again, much appreciated.

Brett:

Here, here. I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1:

Sounds good. Have a good night buddy.